What happened to the day when the preacher would kick the crap out of you on Sunday morning? Hellfire and brimstone would rain from the heavens directly into the pew burning our conscious to ashes. Oh how I miss the good old days.
Week after week I sit in the pew/chair at my church and listen to how God made me to be happy and how I have all this power on tap for when I need it. How when struggles come I just need to call on God and He will answer. Need money just pray. Need happiness just pray. Need healing just pray. Sounds like a bumper sticker doesn’t it?
How come preachers are often unwilling to stand in the pulpit and correct us? I don’t mean the good intentioned you should “try” to correct this path. I mean the ‘you are going to hell if you continue this path’ stuff. Of course those of you who think that ‘once saved always saved’ is written is stone would crap your pants if he said that and then leave the church but honestly I miss it.
I could often use a swift kick in the pants in relation to my salvation. I become stagnant or just lazy at times in my pursuit of God and maybe a good old “stop doing that crap” from my preacher would help get the waters moving again. Am I the only one who doesn’t believe everyone in church is going to heaven?
It took me the longest time to figure out that the majority of people are just hoping that Matthew 7:22-23 ‘On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ does not apply to them.
So often I think of this scripture not out of fear but out of intrigue. I don’t think of myself as a holy person and I certainly have not prophesied or cast any demons out (see my earlier blog) which in the majority of peoples opinions is reaching the pinnacle of possessing God’s power. At some point the Holy Spirit helped me with this scripture and a few other ones to realize that yes I am going to sin and yes I am going to fail, sometime miserably but as long as I pursue God for relationship then I will not have to worry about the above scripture.
Anyway… back to the main point… how many people know of these verses and the dim picture they project? Even more so who wants someone to preach on these verses? I do! If you look at the exodus from the modern church you have to realize that not everyone is buying the happy train story that is being pitched to us. Someone has to be there to tell us the stove is hot or that having a BB gun war is stupid. Someone has to tell us and it may as well be the preacher.
So Preacher, get on with it, make me feel better some other time. I just want to have some direction on what I am not supposed to do and not on what I am gifted to do…
I see what your saying I understand your point here, we do need to change and not just ride the “free ticket to heaven, jesus loves us” bus.
However, it almost seems as though you are saying the only way to show someone what they are doing wrong, is by some how making them feel crappy about themselves.
In the bible jesus did not teach the people of their wrong doings in a way that would make them feel as if “hell and brimstone were raining from the heavens”, I feel he taught them lovingly.
They listened not because he was condemning but because he taught them what their good works would bring and the bad would withhold.
I believe that you can teach lessons without making the person feel like crap about themselves.
Its the difference between my husband saying to me ” you are a wonderful wife but, I need you to start acknowledging me more when I come home because it makes me feel like I don’t matter to you when you don’t” versus ” You are not a good enough wife to me because you don’t notice me when I get home”– both show me that I am doing something wrong, yet the first is not condemning like the second, which would make me feel lousy about my “wifeness”. Secondly, would I even WANT to change if my husband said the second to me? probably not to be honest.
I know that our church is not a very condemning church and really encourages redemption and using Gods gifts etc, but I do know that most every week I am learning something I need to do or change. Just this last sunday there is a message in there about how we need to love more, that we can follow all the dos and don’ts but if there is no love in our life its pointless( and i don’t mean just loving those close to us, and giving to the poor etc,i mean on a deeper level)…you should listen if you weren’t there.
How many times in the bible did the pharisees get angry with Jesus because he was NOT condemning. These law abiding men did not understand jesus because they did not understand teaching through love.
MAYBE, because you are used to feeling condemned, thats what you are looking for, and if you don’t feel it you completely miss the lesson?
I know that from a personal experience– feelings can get comfortable whether they are good or not. There are so many times where I have absolutely no reason to be down or angry but i find myself feeling those things because thats what became normal for me…what became comfortable. Too be honest, it doesn’t always feel normal to me to be happy and content with life, its not what I had gotten used to.
WHAT IF, you are not used to being able to learn something you can be doing differently without feeling like you failed first? There is a difference between “this isn’t enough” and “You are not enough”– the difference is love (think back to 1 corinthians 13:4-7)
and in reference to the matthew verse-yes, I believe Jesus is telling us that not all will get in, that there are things that need to be done! However, I do believe that he is speaking to those who want to use him as a free pass. Its not enough to say that you believe in me and stay the same- i believe is his point.
but thats were love comes back again.
Have you ever watched the show intervention, where they try and get some sort of addict to go off to rehab and change their lives?? I have watched many of these, some people go and change while some people refuse to even try. What i have noticed though is that the people who refuse almost all the time have families who, when its time to read their letters, are condemning and tell them how much trouble they have caused THEM to suffer (making them feel worse about themselves and resentment builds) . The ones who do go, go because they have families who love them. Who tell them how they have changed and how much it hurts them to see them hurting themselves that way (they show them their faults without making them feel worthless, because they feel loved anyway).
Anyways, im sure i’ve made my point by now. which is of course that a church should not preach in the name of Jesus and not try to teach the way he did, which was with love. I believe the church could still help people to change their ways if they made us all feel like crap each sunday, but I don’t know if it would make everyone change for the right reasons. Do you think God really wants us to change because we suck– do you really think our wrong doing effects God in anyway? He wants us to change because we love him and that is how we can show him our love. I don’t believe condemnation makes that point clear.
My response won’t be as long…:-)
I agree and disagree with you. How was that. I think maybe you misunderstand my use of the word brimstone. I used it as a description on how it feels when we are convicted by the Holy Spirit not the preacher himself. My soul burns when I am convicted and yes I do need that conviction from God to get my act together sometimes.
One of my points was that we do not need encouragement in the feel good form all the time. I would prefer at times to be spoken to in the way John did to the people in Luke 3:7-14. John called the people who he spoke to a brood of vipers and then he spoke to them on how to correct their actions. This is effective preaching and yet could be looked at as condemning but more likely I would call it convicting.
MAYBE, you are misunderstanding my description of conviction and transposing it to condemning. I am certainly used to conviction as I continually seek my God and how He would desire I change. Often that crappy feeling I have in my stomach is because He has shown me something I need to change and just as a child reacts I am convicted.
You use the TV show intervention as an example of how to lovingly confront someone. Why? How do you think the people got to the place where they need an intervention. Where were the people in the beginning who are now lovingly intervening?
To finish with your last paragraph, what makes you assume love is associated only with happiness? It is not and you know that. To preach as Jesus did is to demand change and obedience. Did Jesus do this with love? Yes but try reading just the red letters in your bible and see if you don’t see Jesus convicting and rebuking those around Him…
What would you do if your preacher said these words…
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
I would be and have been convicted.
Well i know what you are saying, and to be honest i kinda had a feeling that is what you really meant. i guess what confused me was I wasnt sure what you wanted our pastor to do differently. I dont feel that every sunday i go to church and am told that i God loves me, i have no worries, i have so many gifts..yada yada. In other words, i feel like most the sermons are actually teaching me lessons, convicting me in the spirit.
Now BECAUSE i feel like this is happening i could only assume (since we go to the same church) that you were hoping to hear the lessons in a different way. Do we need to be told off sometimes–yes. We most definitely cannot go to church and be fed the word delicately so that we can twist and turn it around the way WE want to live our lives–this i completely agree with you.
I guess overall i just dont completely agree that our church is all butterflies and rainbows every sunday. I mean hell, a bunch of people just got offended,angry whatever and left after one of Marks sermons.
I guess I wanted to stress this point…. which is that NO ONE, no matter how down and dirty you get, is going to truly be convicted if they do not love God. You could have told me a few years ago(and many did) that drugs were terrible for me and that i was not living the way God wanted, but I would have told you to go F** yourself. Why? Because I did not love God!What i really needed was not someone to come down on me and tell me how much i suck. i needed someone to teach me how those things were holding me back from so many greater things.—that is my only point
Which now seems somewhat irrelevant.
like i said, i just felt like you were saying we can only be convicted if we are talked to in that way. As if you were saying our church isnt attempting to show us how we should be living.
Another reason i think you would really enjoy Chris Johnsons growth group.. He can be offensive at times and i think thats maybe what you would be interested in. hah
I agree. I wasn’t speaking of our church in general I was making a reference of my experience over the last couple of years.
I think the reason people got offended at church was that Mark was intruding on peoples sacred cows and not so much as convicting them. I would still like to see and hear a good old “stop that crap” sermon. I also agree with you that I have a “life sucks” outlook while wholly believing that “God is good”. It can sometimes confuse others and often myself.
I have enjoyed your comments.
Just to bring an even different perspective on the matter than all the ones listed so far, when Jesus said: Matthew 7:22-23 ‘On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ actually applies to those who were trying to win his approval and acceptance by thinking that they needed to be motivated to do good works through the brimstone of the law rather than simply resting in the finished work of Jesus.
I agree. I guess my question to your point is at what point do we take the resting of the finished work of Jesus to the nth degree? I grow weary of not being given guidance in my pursuit of God in relation to my desire to grow closer.
I think there is a balance between resting and running the race. Finding that is important.
Wouldn’t that guidance or example come from “seeing” what God himself has done for us through Jesus so that we go and do likewise?
I will give you a link to explain what I mean in my post above: Check this out:
http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BrugLutheran.pdf
The above link I gave you is “theological”. I listened to a sermon today that takes that “theology” and makes it practical:
http://www.timeofgrace.org/media/pdf/CC%20Text%20TOG-287%2010.12.08.pdf
Lin
What strikes me about your position/theory about correction and conviction is that you want to be corrected in a way that is familiar to you. I get that. My upbringing, which to me was normal, conditioned me to be more comfortable with rejection, conditional love, and manipulation as the means of discipline. Even though today I have knee-jerk reactions to those modes, there is also something familiar and safe about them. I know how to operate in that world, I know what is expected of me. I know how to navigate my way through and get something done. That doesn’t make it good or healthy.
I guess what I have learned in watching other people parent and in exploring who God is in my relationship, is that most good relationships err on the side of love. The best parents and most effective results I see in parenting are parents who extend grace and love to their kids and don’t turn every spat into a battle.
Hmm, that reminds me of someone…YOU! You, walked out of most of the parenting tools your parents wielded on you and found that you produce better kids when you have relationship with them and draw them with love and relationship to learn to make better decisions, rather than trying to force them to be perfect by punishing and correcting them all the time. YOU are one of my best examples of compassionate, relational parenting.
I want for you to become comfortable in being “parented” or led with the same compassion and grace. Why do your kids deserve that kind of relationship, but you don’t? I know that my heart is moved by grace in all its forms. I see someone extend grace to another and I can’t help but cry. I WANT to be like that, unfortunately at this point, I am still unlearning what I knew. I barely know how to extend grace to myself, let alone others.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just not in the same place as you on the journey. Right now, I am steeping (steaming? he-he) in grace and trying to download it. But I love you friend, that’s something I do know for sure!
I agree with you in regards to my comfort and how I like to see things. I find comfort in knowing that along with my desire for a stronger Gospel is that I am always promised that my God will not abuse that but answer my prayers with love. I seldom fear and rebukes done with love and am comfortable with a straight forward correction. I have had enough “false” relationships and twisted words to the point I desire simple truth without fluff. To some that may seem harsh but it is still safe for me and maybe at some point I will learn better…:-)
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